


Let Me Be Your Love

by teenuviel1227



Category: Day6 (Band)
Genre: JaehyungparkianIsEndgame, M/M, Soulmates AU, a bit angsty but not too bad, side!BriWoon, side!jaepil
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-17
Updated: 2018-03-17
Packaged: 2019-04-03 16:41:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,919
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14000286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/teenuviel1227/pseuds/teenuviel1227
Summary: The soulmate AU where Jae and Brian aren’t soulmates but they pick each other anyway--because, well, they’re Jae and Brian.





	Let Me Be Your Love

**Author's Note:**

  * For [subsequence](https://archiveofourown.org/users/subsequence/gifts).



> It’s teenuviel1227 on twt, CC, and tumblr :)

They aren’t soulmates--they know this for a fact because it’s the first thing that occurs to them when they meet at eighteen, both a little lost, both a little glad as they step into the dingy college dorm room and lay eyes on each other: Jae, with his hair that bleached, almost-white blonde shaved into an undercut that lends a sharpness to him which so contrasts with the softness of the rest of him (his oversized sweaters, his lips upturned in a smile, his cheeks that curved ever-so-slightly before ending in his chin) that Brian can’t help but feel an odd skip in his gut when Jae smiles at him, and Brian, still hell-bent on looking the part of punk personified with his earrings and leather jacket, plaid pants, dark hair in a faux-hawk that makes the goofiness of him (his huge smile as he sees Jae hang up a My Chemical Romance poster on the wall, his whining as Jae informs him that he’d just discovered the radiator is broken so they’re probably going to have to buy duvets somewhere off-campus) at once extremely unexpected and unexpectedly welcome.

They head to the nearby mall, scout the department store for duvets that are in their price range and warm enough to tide them over until maintenance drops by the following evening. It’s easy with them: they have so much in common--both enjoy a wide variety of music, both play guitar, both have been jettisoned to the homeland after spending their adolescence in the west. Brian admires Jae and his confidence that’s at once subtle and crystal-clear. Jae likes the way Brian seems to have no idea exactly how good-looking he is, how he seems like a clown trapped in a prince’s body.

That first night, they opt for lying in the same bed (body heat, Jae insists as he loops his arms around Brian’s waist--Brian hums his assent as he pulls Jae’s arms tighter around him, intertwines their flannel-wrapped legs, their sock-clad feet) with two duvets piled on top of them. Their dorm room is spartan at best and still a mess but in a strange way it feels like home. _This must be it_ , both of them think in that space between waking and slumber: Jae trying not to breathe too hard against Brian’s nape, Brian trying not to intertwine his fingers with Jae’s. _It’s him, it has to be him._ Everyone finds their soulmate before they’re thirty--what other explanation could there be for this?

Neither of them have a doubt: the next day, they push the beds together. The next day, they decide that they’re going to share Brian’s extensive vinyl collection, that they’re going to share all of Jae’s novels, that they’re going to move all their clothes into one closet and put the books in the other. There’s no labelling of food in the fridge, no splitting of assets or bills or grooming products--what’s Jae’s is Brian’s, what’s Brian’s is Jae’s.

Neither of them are surprised either when one night in December, on the eve of Brian’s nineteenth birthday, they finally sit down and admit how they feel to one another in between games of Tekken at which both of them take turns letting the other win. Jae talks about how much he enjoys Brian’s company, how much he admires his talent and intellect, his work ethic and perseverance, how much he likes him even when he’s in one of his moods, even when he is at his sulkiest, before launching into a description of other, more physical traits that make him feel like someone’s set fire to his skin: Brian’s eyes, Brian’s smile, Brian’s chest, the mole on Brian’s neck that matches his own. Brian lets Jae go on and on, all the while looking down at his hands and blushing, listening, before himself going on a five-minute soliloquy about Jae’s kindness and how Jae is always taking care of him, always seeing to it that Brian has coffee to drink in the mornings (he is a double major and despite being a freshman has already acquired the sleeping habits of a thirty-year-old medical intern) and a hot meal (albeit being instant ramyun) to come home to at night--and then taking five more minutes to describe just how attractive Jae is with his soft voice and killer smile, his broad shoulders and tall frame, and oh, his hands, those beautiful hands.

“Should we?” Jae asks tentatively, meeting Brian’s gaze. Brian’s cheeks are flushed--and Jae would laugh if he didn’t know that his were probably the exact same color if not more intensely red.

Brian nods, knowing exactly what Jae means. He’s heard about it a million times, has seen his parents hold up their ring fingers with the matching, gleaming iridescent-green bands around them billions of times as a kid--it appears when you first kiss your soulmate and then you’re bound forever.

They sit facing each other, cross-legged on the bed, knees touching through the fabric of Jae’s sweatpants, Brian’s tribal-print pajamas. The snow is falling outside, the rectangle of white, iridescent snow a nice touch in the tableau of the moment,  the sound of the game going into story mode in the background at once romantic and hilarious. Jae smiles before cupping Bran’s cheek and leaning forward tentatively, their noses brushing against each other, their breath warm on each other before their lips come together in the softest of kisses. _This is it,_ Jae thinks, enjoying himself so completely, his heart thudding and thudding and thudding in his chest. He brings his hand up to rest on Brian’s chest and feels that quick, hard pulse that assures him. Brian knows it’s Jae, just _knows_ it as the kiss deepens, as they sigh into each other--he’s never felt this way before, so what other explanation might there be, what other possibility?

They pull away, smiling, grinning at each other, both unable to contain their excitement. Brian is wondering what colors their bands will be: he’s hoping for blue, thinking it’d look amazing against the soft milk of Jae’s complexion. Jae is thinking about how to tell his friends--Bernard would _freak_ , he’d been so smug, always showing of his and Jamie's matching yellow rings when they’d appeared, Alex would be bitter as usual, and Coco would probably start planning the wedding. Because that’s what soulmates do: they get married, settle down, have or adopt kids.

Sure as snow falling.

Sure as time tick, tick, ticking its way around a clock.

So when they look down and their ring fingers are blank, still the same, old skin both of them have seen all their lives, they’re unable to believe it.

“I’m sure that’s a mistake,” Brian says quietly before leaning in to kiss Jae again. Still nothing. Again, again, again. Nothing.

They sit in stunned silence for a moment, fear and dread flooding both of them. Jae wonders what to do now--wonders for a brief moment whether they’re supposed to partition their things, suddenly. Whether they should split the beds back apart, whether they should take back everything they’ve said. And then he notices that Brian is crying, that his eyes are glassy and tears are making streaks like rain down soil across his cheeks, and the sight of it breaks his heart. Sure as day, he realizes, that he doesn’t care--soulmate or not, the things that he’s said about Brian are true.

“BriBri,” He says, his voice a whisper, not wanting to upset Brian further, not wanting to break his own heart either. “I still mean it though. Everything I said. Do you not want to proceed?”

Brian looks into Jae’s eyes, then, eyes wide. “I mean it too but--”

“--but?”

“But everyone ends up with their soulmate. It means that there’s someone out there who’s perfect for you and someone out there who’s perfect for me and if we do this, it’ll just be biding time until one of us gets left behind.”

“Pish-posh,” Jae says, trying to get his voice not to waver, as he waves his hand in what he hopes is a nonchalant gesture. “I ain’t leaving you for anyone. You’re stuck with me.”

Brian laughs then, that soft, gentle laugh that’s so childlike it makes Jae’s heart lurch a little in his chest. “Well, if I’m stuck then you’re stuck too.”

Jae grins at that before getting up and crossing their small room over to the kitchenette where he starts to boil water for the ramyun he’s going to cook for Brian’s birthday eve--not just _any_ ramyun, but special ramyun with sausage and leeks and onions and a lot of grated cheese to offset the spice.

“If you’re not my soulmate,” Jae says, cutting the leeks, the knife making a steady thwack-thwack-thwack against the cutting board. “Then I’ll just never meet my soulmate. Sorry, I’m taken. Spoken for. Ocupado.”

From the bed, Brian smiles, wiping the tears from his cheeks and watching Jae in that moment, holding onto that promise, wishing that he could record it for future reference for both of them so the moment anyone comes close, the moment anyone event tries, he would show it to them and ward them off. He repeats it to himself like a creed: taken, spoken for, ocupado.

 

Both of them are grateful for the fact that the next six years pass in a state of blissful calm: no potential soulmates on the horizon. It’s something that both of them are wary of all throughout college and when they get their first jobs--they make sure to keep to their circle of friends (most of whom had already found their soulmates, but whenever another of their friends who hadn’t suddenly show up with a colored, luminescent ink-like ring around their fourth finger, Jae and Brian are filled with relief--Jae is especially relieved when Terry shows them the purple band around his left finger, recounts the story of a girl he’d met at a party the night before because until that’s sorted, he’s always a little tense when Brian is around Terry), bow out of any collegiate party games like spin-the-bottle or seven minutes in heaven, make it a point not to keep in touch with a lot of their group mates and eventually, workmates.

They have a life together that both of them don’t just enjoy but are proud of: since college and graduation and being able to finally save up enough money to get a good rent-to-own deal, both of the are living in a roomy, comfortable if slightly worn two-story loft in Hapjeong. It’s wide with big windows and lots of good light. The kitchen is a big improvement from their dorm room and the studio that they’d lived in prior to this: it’s roomy, with lots of room for them to finally cook real food--Jae takes pride in his homemade pizza, Brian knows that he cooks a mean kimchi jjigae. Three of the four living room walls are lined with shelves: over the years, their book and record collection has grown so much that the shelves are stacked floor-to-ceiling. The couch is a two-seater that’s just-soft-enough for Brian’s sometimes achy back and bad knees and just-firm-enough for Jae’s posture that he’s continually trying to improve. They have desks on opposite sides of the main room at which both of them usually work late into the night: Jae is an assistant at the local United Nations office, doing research and filing for one of their best attorneys, and Brian is working for one of the big record labels, putting his double-major in music and business to good use.

The entire second floor is their bedroom--the bed is big enough so both of them can sleep comfortably, but small enough so that it’s cozy, so that they’re able to sleep same as they have the first time that they met all those years ago: Jae curled around Brian, Brian holding onto Jae for dear life.

Jae loves this room the most, loves how it’s littered with all of the things that make up their life together: Brian’s oversized flannels hanging off of the back of a chair, his towel draped over the bedpost, his books lying face-down atop Brian’s comics, their toiletries higgledy piggledy and mingled on the dresser.

When Jae tells Brian this one night as they’re huddled together under the covers, arms and legs entangled as they talk (as they often do) late into the night, Brian tells Jae between soft kisses that while he loves this room for all of the obvious reasons--particularly the one where it’s the room in which they make slow, lazy love on Saturday mornings--his favorite room has remained the kitchen. Jae teases him about how his hidden talent is polishing off all of the food in the fridge when he’s stressed out and Brian laughs, but then clarifies.

“It’s because it reminds me of that first night,” Brian says, then, bringing a hand up to stroke Jae’s hair, watching his handsome face, his beautiful eyes, his soft smile. “And every time I step into that kitchen to make coffee or cook us food, I remember how much I love you, how much we fought for. Maybe we aren’t...well, you know, but the thing is that I got here first. I found you before whoever-he-is could. I got so damn lucky, Jae.”

Jae grins at that, holding Brian closer, kissing his nose, the apples of his cheeks, his lips. 

“Nah. I’m the lucky one, Bri. I promise you. I’m the luckiest.”

Because they know that they aren’t soulmates, both of them always make it a point to celebrate: right before Brian’s birthday, they do their own sort of renewal of vows. They play Tekken and eat fast food and Jae always gives Brian some version of his speech. One year it’s a hurried _I love you, only you forever, I promise--_ as Brian kisses his way down Jae’s torso, slipping the waistband of his sweatpants down his hips, another year, it’s a tearful, passionate drawn-out speech about love and time and yearning and forever as they cuddle after watching Breakfast At Tiffany’s. Brian always looks forward to that date less because it’s his birthday, more because he wonders what Jae’s going to do this year. Jae looks forward to it because he loves noting the things about Brian’s reactions that change over the years: that first, bashful year, the passionate abandon when they were living in their old studio, and now more and more as they get older together, as the prospect of losing one another starts to dim, Brian’s more carefree expressions of glee. His laughter, his habit of sweeping Jae up in big hugs, in peppering him with loving kisses.

And of course, Jae treasures the things that stay the same: always, Brian is warm. Always, Brian feels like home.

 

It’s in their twelfth year together--Jae is 31, Brian just shy of 30 at 29 and eleven months--and the year when they finally put in the last deposit at the loft, the year when Jae finally gets a promotion at work, becoming one of the research leads, and when Brian finally lands his first solo project that he’s going to manage and produce, an upcoming rock star whose music he loves.

Nowadays, marriage is something they talk about more and more: of course, their parents find it strange-- _what do you_ **_mean_ ** _not your soulmate?_ Jae’s mom repeats over and over and over on the phone for the past year or so despite him already explaining _exactly_ what he and Brian are to each other--and their friends are both encouraging but wary: Brian doesn’t tell Jae what Terry asks him when he tells him about their plans to get hitched.

Yeah, but what if you find The One?

Brian had brushed it off, telling Terry the one thing that he knows, he believes: Jae _is_ The One.

Almost to thirty, and hah, look, clean ring finger.

Jae is The One. How could he not be when Jae’s laugh is the one thing that warms his heart after a stressful day at work? How could he not be when even now, all these years later, sometimes Brian finds himself glassy-eyed after they make love because he’s struck by how beautiful Jae looks in the warm light of their apartment ( _their_ apartment!)? How could he not be when he has already been for all these years?

Always, Terry gives him that look that Brian ignores.

But you don’t _know_ that, Burger King, Brian knows Terry wants to insist but Brian doesn’t ever legitimize that with an answer and Terry knows not to press further.

For that reason, when the check clears in November and the title to the apartment is delivered to them, they don’t waste any time planning for the wedding--they decide January is as good a time as any: venues are still affordable, snow is scenic (fuck the cold! Jae says, crawling on top of Brian to kiss him on the nose), and it’s far away enough for them to not be considered a rush job, close enough for them to feel content, safe, secure in that they were finally going to belong to each other in a definite, legitimate way.

 _The sooner the better,_ Jae is always whispering softly against Brian’s nape when he thinks Brian is fast asleep, when Brian pretends to be just to hear Jae’s soft reassurances.

This is their life together: one that they’ve built from the ground up, one that they know like the backs of their hands.

They buy each other matching rings that they wear on their fourth fingers: they’ll do it themselves, they joke, giggling as they slip the rings on each others’ fingers, both of them blushing, both of them giddy with excitement.

It’ll be simple but elegant: they rent out one of the ballrooms at an upscale hotel, Jae handles the flowers and decor, Brian handles the food. As of late, the loft looks more like it belongs to a wedding planner: there are different magazines everywhere, cut-outs of different suits pinned up to the wall. Brian’s table is littered with brochures of different cake shops, fliers of caterers, the desk calendar filled in with small notes like _wine tasting_ and _cupcake or one big cake--ask jae!!!_ and _buffet or plated?_ Jae’s desk is more organized but no less cluttered: one stack for all the pictures and descriptions and samples of flowers he’s allergic to (roses, carnations, tulips) and another for those he isn’t (daffodils, orchids, peonies) and yet another for those he can’t stand but is willing to give a try depending on how much antihistamine he might need that day because Brian likes them (daisies, sunflowers, forget-me-nots). Stacked against the wall are different color wheels and samples: turquoise to go with Brian’s eyes or pale pink to go with Jae’s skin tone? So many choices, so little time.

Some nights, they stay up just talking about it. Jae tells Brian about how nervous he is, about how much he just wants it to be done already, how he wants January to come so that it’s over and done with: signed, sealed, delivered. _I don’t want anymore chances for him to find you,_ Brian knows Jae is thinking--because he is thinking the same thing. Instead, Brian tries to paint things in a more positive light, telling Jae about how they should savor the planning, how they should savor the build up to the day: _let’s take our time, baby. What could possibly happen in two months?_

 

The irony of all of it is that it happens to them on the same day, the day that they decide: yellow sunflowers, everything else white, a classic Vanilla chiffon cake, plated meals with three choices. It’s a Wednesday in the first week of December and they’re having breakfast together, trying to savor it because Jae has to work late tonight on a case study being requested by the EPA, and Brian has to go to one of the PR mixers where he’s finally going to meet his first solo client. Brian, the A&R guy, Jae keeps saying: it has a ring to it.

They’ve gotten up early to make breakfast together. Jae’s made poached eggs and toast slathered with butter and sugar before being lightly toasted in the oven for a few minutes. Brian’s made them both coffee and orange juice because he knows they’re both indecisive enough to spend the whole morning arguing about the pros and cons of each. He knows he’d fight for coffee, knows Jae will battle to the death for orange juice. The sunlight is streaming in through the windows, a soft love song (something about being lucky to be in love with your bestfriend) playing in the background. Brian is telling a joke, Jae is laughing so hard that he holds his glass of juice up to his lips but is unable to take a sip because he’s trembling so hard.

Later, he will wish that he remembers what the joke is.

Later, Brian will wish he’d taken care to memorize that moment just as he had that first night.

For Jae, it happens by accident, with someone he’s never thought of remotely in that manner. Wonpil is his assistant at work--a nice, sweet guy with whom he gets along pretty well. Of all of the people at work, Wonpil’s the one person who he can tease relentlessly without Wonpil ever showing even a hint of annoyance. Among Jae’s favorite insults: snake, dummy dummy, fashion victim (the last joke being on account of Wonpil wearing a hot pink, checkered McQueen sweater to one of their biggest conferences the year before, at which they were presenting one of the plans to lower the cost of health insurance in general). Among Wonpil’s favorite responses: a big grin, relentlessly hanging onto Jae like a sloth would onto a tree branch, giving Jae chocolates with sweet notes that read things like _best boss--bet you feel guilty now huh_. Yeah, sure, they get along from the get-go. Yeah, he thinks Wonpil’s a good-looking guy. But he doesn’t really think about him that way.

Not until it happens: Jae is walking down the hallway, reviewing one of the more complicated bids that’d landed on his desk--a research project about disputed territory that he reckons will need more than five specialists, more than two kinds of lawyers. He’s concentrating so hard, is so lost in the nitty gritty of the pitch details that he doesn’t see Wonpil walking carefully down the hall, his arms stacked with papers photocopied for the Research Department meeting that afternoon, over which he’s able to barely see, his favorite pink coffee cup held in one hand, the milky brown liquid lapping dangerously against the brim. Wonpil’s glasses are slipping down his nose and he doesn’t have any hands free to push them back up. He sees Jae, estimates that he’s farther than he is--and barrels right into him. Everything is a flurry of paper, coffee spilling warm and wet onto Jae’s shirt and then the weight of Wonpil as he lands on top of him, their faces banging together, Jae’s lip splitting against one of Wonpil’s teeth as their lips press against each other.

“Jesus--”

“--sorry, Jae! Oh my god, I’m so sorry--”

They clamber off of each other, Wonpil trying to wipe at Jae’s chest with the photocopies before realizing his mug is lying on the carpet where most of the coffee is seeping in, Jae trying to pick Wonpil’s mug up off of the carpet before more damage is done--and then they both freeze as there, on both of their ring fingers are two pink, matching, iridescent rings. Jae’s eyes widen in horror as he sees it sit atop his engagement ring with Brian. Wonpil lets out a small, strangled sound.

“No,” Jae says. “No, no, no.”

And yet, as he looks wide-eyed into Wonpil’s eyes, he feels the involuntary skip of his heart, he sees Wonpil blushing, he knows that already _it_ \--whatever it is--is doing its work.

“Are you okay?” They blurt out at the same time.

Jae shakes his head, puts on his stern face but when he speaks, he knows it comes out shaky, afraid. “Just--just clean it up. And get new copies for the meeting. We start in ten.”

 

For Brian, it happens at the mixer--he doesn’t usually drink but tonight is sponsored by the company and he gets along really well with his client: it’s one thing to love someone’s music, but he also knows that it’s pretty rare to really like who you’re working with. It’s just _different_ , he hears his colleagues say, when you guys get along. And Brian had learned to expect the worst after hearing his friends’ horror stories: so when Yoon Dowoon had strolled in with his easy smile and corny jokes and it turned out that they both had the same favorite drinks--rum coke on the rocks followed by a shot of tequila finished off with lime dipped in sugar, not salt--Brian had been relieved enough to let his guard down, to order drink after drink after drink.

Eventually, someone suggests a drinking game: one that they have over Scrabble. Ordinarily, Brian would let other people win, would let his colleagues go and steal the limelight if it means that he gets to go home early, if it means that he gets to catch Jae before he drifts off to sleep and they get to cuddle for an extra fifteen or so minutes before falling asleep. But Brian is a words man, Brian’s specialty are _lyrics_ , and Scrabble is _his_ board game. He isn’t going to lose--and sure enough, he bests everyone on the management team, the only other man standing his client: Yoon Dowoon knows his vocabulary, matches him word for word.

The game becomes intense, both of them taking an inordinate number of shots until it becomes harder and harder to concentrate. Until the situation becomes a chicken-and-egg kind of deal--the losing lead to the drinking lead to the losing lead to the drinking. Other people go home but Dowoon is just as competitive as Brian and the game goes on and on until finally, Dowoon puts in the exact word that Brian had been saving for _his_ turn.

“HAH. Oxyphenbutazone--”

“--anti-inflammatory medicine used to treat arthritis. Goddamn,” Brian says, laughing, a good buzz going now, his head just-fuzzy-enough, his cheeks pulsing from the alcohol. “You win, Dowoonie. You fucking win. Fuck, that was a good game of scrabble.”

Dowoon laughs. Brian is fascinated by the depth of his voice, by how low it resounds in the air, how surprisingly cheerful it is. “That it was. I can’t believe you know what oxyphenbutazone is.”

Brian shrugs. “I liked the sciences as much as I liked the arts. It was weird. I had this weird crisis back when I was applying for colleges--so I ended up taking a double major--”

“--you’re shitting me,” Dowoon says, eyes wide now, sitting upright. “Was it music production and--”

“--business admin?” Brian finishes, his mouth formed into an o-shape in shock.

“Chills,” Dowoon says, grinning. He glances down at Brian’s hand, tilts his head curiously at the ring on Brian’s finger. He tries and fails to catch a glimpse of Brian’s other hand. “This is going to sound super forward but have you met your soulmate yet?”

“No, I--”

Before Brian knows what’s happening, Dowoon is leaning in and kissing him softly, emboldened by the alcohol, liquid courage pulsing furious through his veins. Brian pushes him away firmly but as gently as he can manage. It isn’t Dowoon’s fault--except for the bit where he hadn’t let Brian finish.

“--I’m engaged,” Brian manages. He’s breathless, a little nauseated. _Maybe it’s the alcohol._

“Oh,” Dowoon says. “I’m so sorry. I just thought--”

“--don’t sweat it,” Brian says, now simply wanting to go home as the world starts to spin. “I get that pretty often. Not everyone gets how you could not marry your soulmate or whatever, but I love my boyfriend so much and we’ve--”

“--holy fuck.” Dowoon drops the shot glass that he’s just filled with another shot.

“Yo, are you okay? Do you want me to call you a cab--”

Brian freezes realizing why it is that Dowoon had dropped the shot. On Dowoon’s hand is a blue, luminescent ring encircling his fourth finger. Slowly, as he’s filled with dread, Brian raises his own hand and there it is: right above Jae’s engagement ring--irrefutable as indelible ink, blue as the ocean of sadness that’s cresting into a hurricane in the pit of his stomach.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry I have to go.” With that, he runs down stairs, hails a cab, and as he feels his body responding to the kiss belatedly even as he tries to wipe it from his memory--that fire of desire in his gut, that lick of excitement in the brief moment Dowoon’s lips had been on his--Brian starts to cry.

 

When he gets home, Jae is pacing back and forth in the living room, waiting for him. _He knows,_ Brian thinks. He knows and he’s angry and he hates me. But before he can speak, Jae is rushing toward him and holding him close and crying, big, full sobs. Brian frowns, unsure what’s happening but holds Jae as tightly as he can, strokes his hair in that way that he knows Jae likes.

“What’s wrong, Jae? What’s wrong--”

“--I’m sorry, BriBri. I didn’t mean to. I didn’t mean for it to happen but Wonpil was walking and then he didn’t see and I didn’t see and--”

“--Wonpil? What about Wonpil?” Brian asks, eyebrows furrowing. He’s met Jae’s assistant a couple of times, thinks he’s a cool guy.

When they pull apart, Jae takes a deep breath and explains what happened: holds up his hand to show it to Brian. Brian starts to cry again, divulging what happened to him, showing Jae his hand too, saying he was sorry, saying he’d been so careful, they’d been so careful.

“I don’t care,” Jae says stubbornly, as they lay in bed later, the way they have so many times over the years--Jae with his arms around Brian, lips pressed to Brian’s nape, Brian with his arms holding Jae’s tight around him. “Like I said. I’ve already chosen.”

Brian nods and tries to repeat his chant, his mantra: _taken, spoken for, ocupado._

 

But it’s harder than either of them thinks: first, there’s the fact that being someone’s soulmate meant that things were _made_ , _meant_ to fall into place--Wonpil and Jae get along, they laugh easy, Wonpil’s presence calms Jae, when Wonpil makes eyes at Jae, his stomach does a flip that he hates himself for, that he knows he will lie to Brian about having felt later on in the day. Brian finds himself swooning inwardly, reluctantly, over Dowoon’s deep singing voice, over the fact that he can play drums _and_ sing, the way that he makes jokes that are so hilarious, so effortless. He knows that all of this he will compensate for later on at home, knows that he’ll do special things for Jae that Jae will be suspicious of, knows that he’ll be suspicious of Jae’s suspicion.They fight more than they ever have before--both of them jealous because they know first-hand they have reason to be.

It’s the first time they skip their first night anniversary. They apologize: Jae saying he has to go to the office, Brian saying he has to stay up recording. They’ll make it up during the weekend, they promise each other.

Brian turns thirty.

They both work late.

The weeks pass and they talk about the wedding less and less, the closer it approaches.

The thing that gets them is the guilt: the one thing that neither of them had factored in--Jae realizes that if he chooses Brian, he will have to leave Wonpil virtually alone, soulmate-less for the rest of his life. _Who doesn’t marry their soulmate?_ Jae’s mom’s voice starts to make a sick kind of sense now, as much as he hates to admit it. It gets to him. Wonpil teases him about it, but he catches Wonpil looking at him too, with that kind of longing and it hurts him to hurt a good friend. His soulmate, as it turns out.

So many of Dowoon’s songs are about heartache, are about feeling lonely and displaced, and it fills Brian with a deep, deep guilt. He’d be able to cure that, he knows, he’d felt it as much as he tries to deny it. They’re easy with each other. It feels natural for them to laugh, to talk for what feels like an endless amount of time--the days speed by, hours that should be long aren’t.

On Christmas Eve, when no one will let them work: not even the United Nations, not even JYP Entertainment, they’re finally forced to stay in. They try to fall into their old routine. Brian cracks the same jokes, Jae laughs the same way. Jae holds him close, Brian tries to be content and calm in his arms. But before they know it, they’re both crying, Brian turning around to face Jae and wipe away his tears.

“Don’t cry, Jae,” he whispers, wiping Jae’s tears away with his thumbs even as his own start to brim, start to spill onto his cheeks. “It’s no one’s fault. It’s no one’s fault--”

“--we should’ve worked harder,” Jae says. “I should’ve--we should’ve--thirty--they said thirty, we were so close--”

Brian holds Jae tight, pulling him closer to him, holding him against his chest. “What do you want to do, Jae? Whatever it is, I’ll respect it. Whatever it is, I love you.”

Jae gasps, then, sobbing full on--and they both know what the answer is. They both know that they can’t live with the guilt of feeling this way about other people, of knowing they’d let other people down. It doesn’t need to be said: Brian knows Jae is thinking of how to cancel the flowers, what to tell his parents. Jae knows Brian is thinking of how they can get most of the deposit back, what to do with the loft.

“I’ll love you forever, too, Kang Younghyun,” Jae says, giving him a long, good look.

And that’s how Brian knows what’s happening, that’s when it hits him like a ton of bricks. Jae never calls him by his real name. This is them breaking up.

 

They give it a shot mostly because everyone else is so caught up in this game of I-told-you-so that it’s almost embarrassing not to. Jae and Brian handle the cancellations separately. When Brian moves out, Jae is at work. When Jae posts the advertisement for selling the loft, he does it after Brian has left and instead has Terry forward Brian the details.

Someone is interested but they're based in San Francisco and would put an initial deposit down for reservation, but would be able to meet with them and give them the rest of it later that year, in September.

When Terry tells Brian, Brian knows that Terry is trying not to do his I-told-you-so face and he appreciates it. He tries not to tell him not to look at him like that and fails.

Wonpil tries to hold off, waits until February to ask Jae out. Jae tells him that he wants to take it slow, that he _has_ to or he’ll go crazy, says no to elaborate dates, only agrees to lunches when their other colleagues are around, when they aren’t left alone. It’s April when they finally _do_ get to go out: Jae’s spent the past three months punishing himself, telling himself he was so stupid for letting this happen. But he knows Wonpil’s birthday is in April, knows that he wouldn’t say no to anyone who asked him to hang out on their birthday--especially not someone who’d been nothing but nice to him, especially not someone who is, first and foremost, his friend.

It’s different with Wonpil--there isn’t that same spark, that fire that he’d had with Brian, but he has fun teasing him, he likes the quiet, thoughtful way in which Wonpil does things, likes the way that he sometimes bursts out into random song, finds the way he sometimes just watches Jae as if thinking something incredibly profound before blurting out the most random things (“if you got on an airplane and opened the window, do you think you could catch a cloud?”) extremely funny. They go to see a movie and it’s funny enough, romantic enough. When Wonpil holds his hand, Jae doesn’t resist. When Wonpil walks him home to the studio he rents in Gangnam and kisses him on the steps, Jae doesn’t say no, thinks to himself that this is pleasant in its own way.

They go out again and again and again until the movies they watch are almost uncountable, until winter turns into spring and spring into summer, until finally Wonpil blurts out--in Wonpil fashion--at a meeting that he really wishes _some_ people would just make up their minds about whether or not they were dating already: a euphemism for the irregular migration patterns of the beluga whale, he insists. It makes Jae laugh despite himself. That night, he waits for Wonpil, takes him out to dinner, asks him to be his boyfriend. Wonpil, of course, accepts.

Their relationship is great: they don’t fight, they don’t argue, they’re completely in sync. And for a while, Wonpil is living in a kind of blissful bubble--Jae is sweet and funny, if sardonic and a little smug, but that’s just Jae. The first few months pass in a kind of flurry of excitement for Wonpil: everything is amazing, this new-found love incredible for him after years of being severely disappointed in the Seoul dating scene. He only begins to notice it after the first time that he and Jae spend the night together.

After, Jae doesn’t hold him.

While they do it, Jae is tender and attentive and a generous lover, but after, he says he doesn’t feel like talking. He doesn’t want to shower together: it’s just his _thing_ , he insists. And while Wonpil falls back onto the bed, exhausted and sated, freshly bathed, he calls Jae back to bed and tells him he can stay the night. Of course. He’s his boyfriend--he can definitely stay the night. Jae refuses, kissing him softly before telling him he’d rather head home. Eventually, Wonpil recognizes that far-off look as the way that Jae looks when he’s thinking about Brian. Eventually, Wonpil learns not to ask Jae to stay over because he knows he’ll refuse.

He always does.

 

Dowoon and Brian’s duo works like magic: something that Brian’s grateful for because it means he doesn’t have to think about his failed relationship so much, means he can throw himself into his work and not think about the pain and the heartbreak and how quickly things had slipped away and out of their control. Brian works himself like a horse, works hard until everything is perfect: every little detail of Dowoon’s career perfectly engineered to make the best music and promote it in the best way. With Brian handling Dowoon’s account, the next few months are a flurry of performances and tours, of shared victories and joys, of long nights in foreign cities--and eventually, of late nights talking about anything and everything, of more games of Scrabble that lead to getting drunk that lead to at first kissing and then passionate sex in various hotel rooms. Brian always falls asleep right after. Dowoon doesn’t mind, isn’t a hugger himself. After, he cleans up and heads back to his own room after tucking Brian in. Sometimes, Brian sleep talks but it’s always unintelligible, and Dowoon doesn’t make anything of it.

Eventually, there’s a first date. It’s their first week back in Seoul after a string of concerts across the US: New York, Michigan, Texas, Washington, Portland. Brian is grateful they hadn’t stopped in California. That would’ve killed him: sunshine and the beach and palm trees are something he still can’t help but associate with Jae. On the flight home, Dowoon asks him the question plainly: go out with me?

Brian shakes his head, grins as the plane’s captain announces they’re coasting at a good, steady 40,000 feet.

_Yeah, yeah. I’ll go out with you._

Brian is fond of Dowoon. They go to a gig and then have dinner by the river--Dowoon pays for the concert, Brian pays for the food. As usual, the conversation is good, one of the few ones that they’ve had without being inebriated or high on a lack of sleep, and like this, Brian thinks he could maybe do this. Thinks he wouldn’t mind going out with Dowoon again because this is the first time in the past few months that he hasn’t felt miserable, that he hasn’t woken up feeling displaced somehow.

They have well-matched musical sensibilities, make it their routine to go and see an upcoming band every Friday night. One night in May, they go to a gig of their friend Jinyoung’s and Dowoon makes a show of asking Brian to be his boyfriend. Brian blushes, embarrassed, bashful the whole way through but says yes because he really likes Dowoon, because he knows Dowoon is just as embarrassed as he is. They buy drinks for the whole bar.

He doesn’t spot Jae and Wonpil at the back of the bar--Wonpil, Jinyoung’s college bestfriend, whisking Jae out of there before Jae has time to react. Jae trying hard not to let it show that he’s stung, that for some reason it still hurts even if it shouldn’t, even if they’d done this to themselves anyway, hadn’t they?

 

The first time that it really, truly bothers Dowoon is also the last. It's in August--it’s his birthday and he and Brian have booked a suite for the weekend. There are certain things, small things, that Dowoon notices about Brian: for one thing, he never stays over. This is going to be their first weekend away and he can tell that Brian is nervous, ironic as most of their early courtship is spent in hotel rooms across the US. Also, he never cuddles after, and as stone-cold as Dowoon claims to be, he does like to be spooned once in a while.

Tonight has been more or less perfect. They’d had a good dinner, there’d been fireworks out by the main courtyard. Brian had picked out a good bottle of wine, had treated Dowoon to a chocolate fondue, had surprised him with his favorite Sans Rival cake, the big 2-8 candles bright and gold, the flames bright as wish as Dowoon blew them out. The hotel suite is beautiful and romantic and they play mood music to which they have really good, passionate sex, both of them sated and content after. As usual, Brian falls asleep face-down. Dowoon is disappointed but has learned not to be surprised.

He isn’t a hugger, he tells himself.

_It’s okay._

He drifts off to sleep shortly after, arms wrapped around a pillow. It’s around two in the morning when he’s awoken by Brian’s sleep talking--terror fills Dowoon as for the first time in the months they’ve been together, he understands clearly what Brian is mumbling.

“Jae,” he’s saying, chuckling softly to himself in his sleep. “I missed you so much. Don’t you ever leave me again, okay?”

 

The first time they see each other again is that September, the day before Jae’s thirty-second birthday. They meet at a cafe in Hapjeong to meet with the buyer of the loft: he’d written out the check just to Jae and was willing to issue new ones splitting the amount into two, but he’d be out of the country the next couple of months and needed them both to receive it because he’d be unavailable to do any banking while in transit.

Jae is nervous, terrified, almost of seeing Brian again. Part of him is ashamed--not just of their break up, of going back on the life they’d built together so easily, but also of having broken up with Wonpil. It felt stupid--his mom never let him forget it--but soulmate or not, it seemed unfair to keep someone in a relationship with you when you were constantly still thinking about someone else. It isn’t that he didn’t enjoy his relationship with Wonpil: he’d had fun, he’d felt wanted, he’d felt desired, loved, but he thinks to himself as he changes out of one outfit and into another, checking himself in the mirror, maybe he’d already given himself away all those years ago. Fundamentally, the one problem with Wonpil had been that he wasn’t Brian. He wasn’t Brian with all of his weird quirks and his strange laughter that looked even stranger on someone with the features of some kind of god. He wasn’t Brian to whom Jae hadn’t needed to explain anything because he was _there_ for everything that had happened to Jae since he was eighteen. He didn’t feel like home.

Of course, Jae thinks, Brian must be happy already. He can't stop replaying that scene in his mind of Dowoon asking Brian to be his boyfriend, as a reminder that he was an idiot, that he’d let the one person that he’d loved slip through his fingers. Dowoon laughing, his deep baritone voice booming through the mic of the bar after the band’s set: _Recently, I met my soulmate and for the first time I didn’t feel alone. For the first time, I could make music and really feel like it meant something. We’re performers, musicians, people of the stage and so I thought it’d be fitting to ask him this today with our friends here--Bri, would you be my boyfriend?_

And Brian’s laughter--that familiar, lovely laugh that made Jae’s chest lurch with pain, that made his stomach flip, that he loved hearing, that he knew would now light up someone else’s day--filling the sound system as he’d said yes.

_Yeah, yeah I’ll be your boyfriend. God, Dowoonie. You’re so cheesy._

Dowoonie. The endearment hit Jae like a whip, felt like salt being poured into a wound he'd convinced himself he didn't have the right to have. 

And then Wonpil was pulling him out of there. Always, right on time. And yet, too late for him.

That’s what Jae had said when they’d broken up: _it’s too late for me, Pillie. I gave my heart away a long, long time ago, turns out._

Now, Jae sits in the cafe, overeager, he knows--and way too early, he knows, but he doesn’t really care at this point. He just wants to see Brian. He just wants to hear him laugh one more time, even if it’ll never be for him again.

Brian walks into the cafe and their eyes meet. Jae’s stomach does that little flip, his heart skips a beat.

“Hi, Bri.”

Brian smiles at him. Even now, Jae memorizes Brian’s smiles--knows that this one is sincere, that there’s no anger there, no resentment.

“Hey, Jae. Advanced happy birthday, by the way.”

Brian’s palms are sweaty. Since he got the email, he’d been both dreading this day and looking forward to it. The morning after Dowoon’s birthday, Dowoon had broken up with him. It came out of the blue but also wasn’t a surprise to Brian and he appreciated Dowoon’s frankness, appreciated how calm he was despite the fact that he knew--could hear it in the tremor of his voice, in the way that he held his hands in fists at his sides--that it hurt him to say it.

_You’re still in love with Jae, Bri. You talk about him in your sleep. I’m not angry with you but I don’t think we should do this anymore._

He’d been unable to deny it. Brian is many things but one thing he isn’t is a liar. And Dowoon had been a good friend, an amazing client--he only deserved the truth. And so, Brian had broken down and admitted that that was true. They’d built a life together, he explained, only then realizing how much it had meant to him.Twelve years is twelve years of laughing together and cooking together and making inside jokes and seeing all these ridiculous things happen to all of our friends.

And in that moment, he’d missed Jae so intensely that he’d had to lie down for a moment, curling himself around his pillow until the feeling subsided. After that, he’d wished Dowoon well, and thanked him for his honesty and that was that.

Brian had spent the whole morning making a game plan with himself. He’d be courteous, he’d be respectful. He’d resist the urge to impose himself upon Jae, to act like they still belong to each other--but also, he’d try and ask if Jae and Wonpil were together, he’d try and gauge if maybe there was something there. Brian would take even the slimmest sliver of hope.

When he sees Jae again, it’s just like that first time, all those years ago in that small, dingy dorm room. Now, Jae looks dapper in a turtleneck and coat and his hair is dark, falling into his eyes in just the right way, but the feeling is the same. His heart skips and he’s sure. He’s sure, like he’d told Terry for so long.

Jae is The One.

“How’ve you been?” Jae asks, smiling back.

Brian knows this smile. It’s the small talk smile, the slightly flirtatious smile. He takes it as a good omen.

“Well,” Brian says and tries to think of something creative to say, but finds himself blanking. “Dowoon and I broke up--”

Brian watches as Jae’s eyebrows shoot up, lost in his dark fringe. His heart skips a beat. _Does Jae look...hopeful?_

“--us too! I mean. Me and Wonpil, it didn’t work out--”

“--don’t sell the loft,” Brian blurts out.

“But--”

“--please,” Brian says, putting his hand over Jae’s in what he hopes isn’t overstepping boundaries or being too forward or whatever people who weren’t eighteen years old and in love with their roommate did. “Please. Jae. Let’s give it another shot. Look. All our lives together, we’ve been afraid of this idiotic soulmate thing and we tried it and I don’t care who made soulmates or who says what. You’re the one for me. I choose you.”

Jae’s crying now, tears slipping down his cheeks. “I love you.”

Brian starts to sob now, too. “I love you too--”

“--we’re not very subtle, are we?” Jae says, wiping his nose with the sleeve of his coat.

Brian laughs--that wholehearted, full-bodied laugh that Jae loves so much. “We really aren’t.”

“Bri?”

“We should probably leave before the guy who wants to buy the loft gets here.”

“Right.” Brian grabs Jae’s hand, intertwining their fingers together in a way that he’s missed so badly. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

 

 

They don’t move back in immediately. They go on dates, they re-learn being with each other, both of them sharing things they’d learned in their time apart. Jae talking about how Wonpil had taught him to be cautious and taught him to always be kind, even when it hurt you. Brian listens, tries not to be jealous, tries to take the conversation for what it is. Brian talks about Dowoon, how he’s learned to not take himself too seriously, how he’s learned the importance of being honest. They spend nights together, but hold off on the staying over: Mondays and Wednesdays, Jae stays at Brian’s until dawn, both of them just talking and talking and talking, but he wants to save all their old routines for when they move back in together--an unspoken but implied inevitability for the both of them. Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, Brian makes Jae dinner at his place and hangs out until one in the morning, talking about movies or playing games or just reading each other different poems that they’d found interesting.

Sometimes, they play guitar.

Sometimes, they kiss, the loveliness of it making them both breathless--sometimes they don’t, both knowing that if they start, they’ll throw all caution to the wind and start sleeping with each other immediately.

It’s in December, the day before Brian’s birthday, their anniversary, when they both decide to go back to the loft. As they push the doors open, it hits both of them like a sigh of relief: they’re home. Here is their space, their walls, their floors, their kitchen, their windows. Sunlight spills in. Brian reaches for Jae’s hand, squeezes it tight. If Jae will let him, he thinks, he’ll be his love all his life.

Jae leans over, plants a soft kiss on Brian’s temple, on the mole on his neck, thinking to himself that this is all he’ll ever need--Brian and their life together.

“Jae?”

“Mmmm?”

“Taken, spoken for, ocupado.”


End file.
